Integrity in Education: William H. Newell in Conversation with P. Sven Arvidson

This article features a conversation on the occasion of a May 2018 "Festschrift" in "Issues in Interdisciplinary Studies" to honor the work of William Newell, between Newell and P. Sven Arvidson. William Newell is Emeritus Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies at Miami University, where he taught interdisciplinary courses full time in the School of Interdisciplinary Studies (Western College Program) from 1975 until his retirement in 2012. He has consulted on interdisciplinary course development and teaching and conducted external reviews of interdisciplinary programs at well over a hundred colleges and universities. He has published numerous articles and chapters on interdisciplinary higher education. P. Sven Arvidson is Associate Professor and Director of Interdisciplinary Liberal Studies at Seattle University, where he is also the founding coordinator of the Consortium of Interdisciplinary Scholars. He has been co-editor of Issues in Interdisciplinary Studies since 2017. Some topics discussed include whether or not Newell considers himself an academic radical, or academic pioneer, how a liberal arts-educated philosophy major from Amherst College, with a subsequent PhD in economics from the University of Pennsylvania, bloomed into the founding leader of interdisciplinary studies in the U.S., and Newell's thoughts on the historic development of the first European meeting of the annual Association for Interdisciplinary Studies (AIS) conference in Fall 2019. Arvidson asks Newell this provocative question: "Having reviewed over a hundred integrative and interdisciplinary programs of all types over the years. What are several things that good programs seem to get right?" Newell's top ten best practices for conducting and teaching interdisciplinary studies listed in "The State of the Field: Interdisciplinary Theory" (2013), are discussed, and he is asked if he would add more to this list now. He is also asked if he would like to modify existing practices he named in that list.